Snow
by roslintower
Summary: She's always there, watching him, but he doesn't know. His warmth melts the snow inside her heart. Narcissa/Severus. Oneshot.


Snow

She is always there, watching him as he pored over the Potions books in the library. No one sees her in the shadows between the shelves. She sees everything, like how he swipes his black hair out of his black eyes as he reads, how he has the habit of tapping the end of his quill against the tip of his nose when he's thinking particularly hard. Sadly, she also sees whenever that idiotic Gryffindor, James Potter, and his gang of followers (which included her blood traitor cousin) corner him.

Her blue eyes flash with anger, and her hands ball into fists, but she's never been brave enough to stand up for herself, let alone anyone else.

He'd only said a single word to her before, on that day, when she had been hurrying along the corridor and walked straight into someone. Her cheeks had flushed, and the black-haired boy silently helped her upright. He muttered a quiet 'Sorry', and ran off. She was left staring at the hand he had grasped in his slender fingers.

She has been completely lost since then.

But she knows about _her, _the pretty Gryffindor with the dark red hair and striking green eyes. She notices that he has fallen for Lily Evans, and that Lily has fallen for James. She hates Lily for being the one he loves and yet not love him back (how any girl could not love him is inconceivable to her), and she doesn't hate Lily, because how could she hate anyone who makes him so happy?

She sees Lily drag him out to the snow, both of them laughing and twirling amid the spiralling flakes. They pelt each other with snowballs, in a happy, carefree world that the blonde girl watching could never imagine. She stays there for a while, entranced by the sparks in their eyes and the sincerity of their joy. She wonders how anybody could be so happy, when there was such sadness in the world. How could they close their eyes and smile blindly, although the pain and suffering were not real? Is ignorance the price of bliss? Is it even worth it?

That night, she receives an owl from her parents. She is to leave school, and marry Lucius Malfoy, who she had only met once in her life. She's terrified, she's heard of how he had treated his past girlfriends. It will be worse for her; once she is married, she cannot run away. Her world, though unstable and filled with heartache, is crashing down.

And then the frost and the snow begin to spread through her body. It starts as a hollow, icy feeling in her chest, and as it slowly takes over her she finds that she no longer cares. She regards everything, even her upcoming marriage and no doubt imprisonment in the detestable Malfoy's manor, with apathy. Why should she care? What has the world ever given her?

But she knows that the world has given her something. It's given her _him. _The snow clouds her eyes, but she still cries herself to sleep.

The next morning she runs out to snow covered grounds. She finds the spot where he and Lily had laughed and played the day before. She stands in the exact place where he'd stood, and stares upwards at the cold grey sky, watching as flecks of white land in her hair, silvery in the early morning light. She tries to find that happy place that he and Lily seemed to live in, but she does so in vain.

She ends up curled up on the hard, snow-packed ground, shivering. Tears leak from beneath her closed eyelids, feeling like ice and fire burning on her cheeks. She hopes that no one will find her there until it was too late, but someone does.

Hands brush the hair from her face, pulling her up gently. She notices that the hands are shaking. She lets herself be pulled into a sitting position, but when the hands try to release her she clings on tighter, so he slings an arm across her shoulders, melting the snow within her with his warmth. Something snaps, and she loses all control. Her entire body tremors from her uncontrollable sobs as she cries into his shoulder.

'Shh,' he whispers, and from his voice she can tell that he's been crying too. She looks up, and sees the tears slipping freely from his black eyes. She wonders if he's had a fight with _her, _and she pats his back, trying to comfort him without knowing how.

They sit for a while, and watch the snow spiral down to the white ground.

* * *

A/N: Cissy and Severus don't belong to me, they're Rowling's. And though Roslin and Rowling both begin with Ro-, they sure aren't the same thing.

And the reason Severus is crying is because he's just had the fight with Lily, when he called her mudblood. I know that the timeline is all wrong, and that it wasn't snowing when he did that, but...just imagine that it was, for the sake of the story.


End file.
